Blog

Depending on the publication or organization you consult, our atmosphere has sucked up enough energy-related emissions to bring us near, at, or past a point of no return where rising sea levels, heightened temperatures, and poor air quality wreak havoc on everything from weather to life itself.

Building Performance Equipment, Inc. welcomes the newest addition to its family of Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERVs)–and it’s a rather special little guy. Like its bigger brothers, the BPE-XE-MIR-200-i is an ultra-energy-efficient unit that sports a counter-flow heat exchanger design with less than 1% mixing of air streams. Ultra-as in 80% to 98% thermal efficiency with an Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) of 60 to 160. (Most ERVs in the industry typically come in at 45% to 65% thermal efficiency, rarely surpassing an EER of 10.) The new unit works much like the rest of the multi-patented line as it preconditions incoming air to room temperature. In other words, it efficiently recovers energy from stale air leaving the building and uses it to warm room temperature in colder months and cool it during the warmer months. In fact, BPE ERVs are so efficient that they, depending on the situation, can actually reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental HVAC. That efficiency can also reduce energy bills and our impact on the environment. In fact, it is LEED approved and ideal for Passive House design as well as conventional.

When school buildings choose clean energy retrofits, many of the benefits are obvious. Others not so much. Improved Indoor Air Quality does more than provide healthier learning environments: Public schools rely on average daily attendance rates to receive federal funding, so the potential for less student and staff sick days is important.

Rarely, can you call someone or something ‘passive’ and have it come off as a compliment. Inactivity, especially in today’s society, comes off as just plain lazy in most circles. Oddly enough, adopting passive methods to power our homes just
might ignite the fastest, most powerful sprint toward a net-zero building stock. Passive energy practices cut back on energy use by 80%, ease harmful emissions, reduce reliance on the grid, save heaps of money, and offer the population far healthier indoor air quality (IAQ).

When it comes to comfortable, healthy Indoor Air Quality, reliable HVAC solutions must compensate for increasingly tight building envelopes. The trend toward tighter envelopes is, no doubt, an important one. They are a must for keeping out moisture, condensation, and soil gases (i.e. radon) as well as reducing heat and air conditioning costs. However, a supply of fresh air coming into a space is vital if you, quite simply, want occupants to breathe. Further, you want them breathing healthy air. The tighter the envelope, the less fresh air makes it into the building naturally.

The World Green Building Council claims the planet needs to engineer a net zero carbon building stock by 2050 to keep the global temperature increase below 2°C. Scientists believe doing so will prevent the most serious consequences of climate change such as disruption of the world’s food supply and flooding of coastal areas. If the world manages to make all new construction net zero by 2030 and older structures retrofit compliant by 2050, will it be enough to help the planet self-correct? Is keeping the temperature increase below 2°C even feasible?

It’s easy to ignore things we cannot see. Gravity, oxygen, atoms fall into this category … all good things our bodies make use of daily. If these concepts ceased to exist, so would we. Yet we don’t think about that often, nor is it necessary for the average person to do so. Likewise–and unfortunately–we tend to ignore less-beneficial invisible realities such as poisonous elements that collect in our indoor environments and irritate or endanger our bodies. Sometimes we even ignore stinky toxins if the smell is bearable enough. If your home or work environment’s HVAC system is not spitting out bad air and filtering in fresh air optimally, chances are you’re inhaling damaging elements just as sure as gravity is keeping your feet on the ground. And that’s someone everyone should think about.

He’s busy. She’s busy. You’re busy. We’re all busy, and sometimes in this world where information is increasingly at our fingertips, the result becomes overwhelmingly counterproductive. Do you really have time to research the pros and cons for five brands of sunblock when your car battery just died again and you leave for vacation tomorrow?

When we bust ERV myths at BPE, Inc., we aren’t just talking theory. We have demonstrated what today’s super-efficient ERVs can do in the real world. After discussing cross-contamination, efficiency myths, and a case study that demonstrates the excellent IAQ benefits of an ERV in a practical application, we move on to our next ERV myth:

When we bust ERV myths at BPE, Inc., we aren’t just talking theory. We have demonstrated what today’s super-efficient ERVs can do in the real world. After discussing cross-contamination and efficiency myths over the last two weeks, we present a case study that demonstrates the excellent IAQ benefits of an ERV in a practical application: